


some overwhelming question

by Lvslie



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: And Aziraphale's Obliviousness, Crowley's Existential Dread, Dithering, Eventual Fluff, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Riesling, The Love Song of Anthony J. Crowley, and
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2019-01-08 17:22:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12258756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lvslie/pseuds/Lvslie
Summary: ‘I wasn’t exactly my brightest as of late,’ Aziraphale said, to his splayed out hands. Crowley didn’t think much by that point, quite overwhelmed. He just thought, well, Aziraphale’s hands were surely warm, and where was the justice in that?





	some overwhelming question

**Author's Note:**

> Ah. This is what happens when you work on Paradise Lost and Prufrock in one week.

Life tends to offer its foolish participants bites and teases of varying levels of consciousness; usually terrible, usually so much that the given individual promptly wishes to retreat to their cosy dull half-perception of the everyday routine-bundled life.

Crowley, as a general rule, tended to quite fervently be such an individual.

 

_streets that follow like a tedious argument_

He sauntered up to the bookshop on clumsy hurried legs, cradling a near-apoplectic hibiscus plant in his arms. He’d stumbled out of the Bentley and almost toppled face-first onto the pavement—but managed to perform something in the way of a looping, bless-speckled pirouette and swivel onto the curb instead.

Some silver-haired old lady had chuckled at him, ‘Oh, _be careful, young man_ ,’ and Crowley silently fumed at the odds of meeting an old lady in blasted _Soho_. 

Oh, this was a stupid, _stupid_ idea. 

He rushed up the creaky stairs anyway, without any treacherous pause that could successfully prevent him from doing so, and barrelled in, yelling, ‘AZIRAPHALE.’

The inside looked, unmistakably, like an old and yellowed photograph: clusters of dust swirling in the dim light, crumbling parchment and a patiently moulding wallpaper that sunk everything in a heavily damp scent. Everything a little dizzying.

Only, it wasn’t _really_ dizzying, at least not usually. Usually it felt more like a chance to let out a long-held breath and relax the tightened muscles up his wiry neck at last; maybe smirk a little, maybe say something filthy and teasing and watch Aziraphale’s indignant expression as he nearly dropped whatever inanimate object he was currently holding. _Really, Crowley_ , he’d say sourly at the chuckling demon, _you’re impossibly childish sometimes._

But right now all those familiarities made Crowley coil into something tense and tight-strung, and when Aziraphale came toddling out of the backlot muttering about _spilling things_ and _the virtue of patience_ , looking dusty and snug in a hideous woollen sweater, with a book tucked under his arm—well, it all became something along the lines of _too much_.

And Crowley felt, all of the sudden, like the biggest idiot in the entire creation. He opened his mouth and not a word came out. What was he trying to do here, anyway? What on earth was he trying to achieve?

‘I’m _terribly_ sorry but we are clo—oh, _Crowley_. Do come in. What is it, dear boy?’ the angel said, voice still rather far removed from patient but eyes brightening. 

That, at least, was how it usually tended to be: the reluctance from either side was mostly a pretence. _Mostly_. 

‘Crowley?’ Dimly, like he was speaking from a great distance. ‘Are you alright?’

A cog inside Crowley’s head clicked into place, the supply of words returning in a stiff-lipped and snappy, ‘Yeah, um. Yeah, so here’s the thing. You’ll need to take it, Aziraphale. I have no more bloody space. They’re all growing like hysterical—and I mean, that’s _good_ , but I don’t really want to toss it out, so. There. Your very first shopgirl, be _gentle_ with her.’

He slammed the plant onto the counter, and registered Aziraphale’s baffled eyes following the tremulous tremble of its leaves. The angel half-blinked, then looked up to meet Crowley’s stoically impassive glasses. The confusion on his face deepened.

‘But don’t you usually—’ he began, tentatively. Crowley sniffed and tapped his foot on the floor. His entire body was vibrating, but he _hoped_ it looked rather like impatience.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I do. Your point, angel?’

Aziraphale watched him in a wholly bewildered silence for a _whole_ lingering minute. Crowley cleared his throat with a grunt.

‘You’re right,’ the angel then said, apparently sobering up. He smiled amiably, reaching out for the plant and giving it a slightly wary look of someone who liked the idea of nature and still felt mildly intimidated by the thought it should manifest itself in their close proximity. ‘Of course I’ll take it, my boy.’

And then he was opening his mouth to ask something else, something like, _‘Is there something else, Crowley? You look a little odd’_ or ‘ _Maybe you’ll stay for tea?_ ’ and Crowley wouldn’t be able to bear either without spontaneously imploding.

‘I’ll be going now, loads of work to do,’ he thus cut in, voice unbearably chirpy, and sent Aziraphale a lithe half-wave of his right hand, the left fumbling for the doorknob. He tried not to stumble across his own legs. ‘Take care, angel. _Chow_.’

He pushed blindly at the door, unwilling to face any possible answer, and fell out into the brisk air outside. 

Then he exhaled.

 

 _oh, do not ask, ‘what is it?’_  

 

It was more difficult, though, to reject the awareness when it came full-blown from the deepest depths. Humans could deem themselves veiled from the Great Knowledge by the varyingly thin or thick layers of occult or ethereal mid-beings and mid-dimensions. Crowley was a mid-being in flesh and spirit, and he was teetering on the edge of the nagging question if … if …

And the point was, no matter the ever-whispery words at the peripheral and despicable edges of his mind, the question refused to formulate itself. _Abject terror_ , he could perhaps call it, and it served as the last escape.

  

_and indeed there will be time_

 

It was the Ritz again, which wasn’t nearly as coincidental as Crowley could hope for it to be. Aziraphale was looking more than a little hazy, what with treating himself to a rather decent goose and a fair amount of Riesling.

‘Really, my boy,’ he was saying, ‘I don’t quite understand what you mean when you say _claustrophobic_.’

‘ _Really_?’ Crowley said, drawling obnoxiously. He felt hazy as well: but in the sense that a haze of overwhelming unease chose to entwine with the haze of alcohol—in a way that wasn’t so much _warm_ as simply _disorienting_. ‘Would have thought tha’s obvious. Claustrophobic, meaning. Meaning, there’s not enough _ssspace_.’

Aziraphale squinted at him from across the table. His reading glasses had slid down his nose and were now swaying as well, from the very tip. Crowley tried not to fixate on this little detail, and felt even dizzier as he fixated on it even so.

‘London,’ Aziraphale pronounced, which somehow managed to sound a little less like a word and infinitely more like a puff of air with some accidental consonants thrown in, ‘S’not enough space? Crowley, you. You _snob_.’

He tsked and jabbed his little fork into the _amedei chocolate cremeux_ he was currently dissecting, shaking his head woozily in rather comic disapproval. Crowley licked his lips.

‘Nah,’ he said, mildly pleased with how nonchalant he could still make his voice sound, ‘s’not it. Not that _kind_ of space, Aziraphale. S’different. What I mean is, there’s too much of it here. Don’t you think? It’s a little bit _too_ …’ he paused to try and collect his thoughts ‘… much. S’pecially now.’ 

‘Now?’ Aziraphale said incoherently, looking up at Crowley with his blurry bright eyes and trying to conceal the fact his mouth was full of chocolate. ‘And what’s _now_ , m’dear?’

Crowley swallowed, the dizziness returning in a quick and mocking wave. ‘Now,’ he said in a smaller voice, ‘now’s _after_.’

And there it was again: that blasted half-question. He never knew that to make of it.

 

_there will be time to murder and create_

 

He’d take turns driving the Bentley, in wholly pointless circles around London; avoiding the central point that burned and prodded at his hyper-awareness, the source of everything that was convulsed and yelling within him (which, _officially,_ was nothing; which, truthfully, was everything) and _changed_ , relentlessly: once, it was the noisily crowded Ritz, once the rain-dampened pavement in St James’ and sprinkles of water twittering from the yellowing leaves.

But mostly, mostly it was a cluttered dusty bookshop with the sun trembling inside through the muddied window.

 

_and time yet for a hundred indecisions_

Bentley; and he was feeling much more steady and suave already, driving at an ungodly speed with a cocksure smile, pointedly aware of the way Aziraphale had stiffened and was now clutching at the door like a nervous cat, the tartan scarf flapping around his neck. He resolutely ignored the recurring plea of whether he could, _perhaps, roll up the window, please?_

‘See!’ he said instead, raising his voice over Mercury’s _are you hanging on the edge of your seat?_ which made a particularly grin-worthy parallel to the angel’s factual dilemma. ‘That’s the good bit. The _best_ bit. Try and tell me that the invention of this thing wasn’t a stroke of bloody genius, Aziraphale. Have to hand it to the buggers, nothing pre-human comes even close to this … this …’

‘ _Horror_?’ Aziraphale piped up, voice only a little shrill. Crowley threw him a sideways glance and chuckled again; the angel didn’t tear his eyes away from the road in front of them. ‘I rather thought you got over this … this daredevil streak after your hot little adventure on M25. I’m surprised that—’

‘Nah,’ Crowley said, fingers drumming on the steering wheel, ‘if anything, all of it made me realise that we gotta, y’know.’

‘I most certainly _don’t_ ,’ Aziraphale said firmly, if a little incoherently, as he attempted to blow the scarf away from where it splayed all over his face. 

Crowley exhaled with a hiss, sinking slightly into his seat.

‘Live a little,’ he muttered. ‘You know. _Carpe diem_.’ 

‘Oh, like you haven’t— _bugger_.’ Aziraphale fumbled with the scarf, giving in at last and acknowledging the need to extricate his hand from where it was clutching at the door in order to deal with the offending garment. He yanked it away and tossed onto the back seat with surprising grace. ‘Like you haven’t already. Crowley, for Heaven’s sake. You slept through a blasted century. And besides, _carpe diem_? I should think it a little beneath you to so blandly repeat after that poor boy Horace.’ 

In eloquent response, Crowley shrugged one shoulder, trying to maintain his good spirits. ‘Whatever, angel. Remind me it’s all _bland earthly pleasures next_ time you have that cake at the Ritz. So damn bland.’

He could feel the angel giving him a nasty sideways look, but didn’t meet his eyes. Right now, he still had the upper hand. 

But then Aziraphale spoke out and Crowley’s heart stuttered slightly in his ribcage. 

‘That … plant of yours,’ he said, with a worrying deliberation. ‘I don’t know whatever gave you the idea to give it to me, but it’s … it’s just not _settling in_ , Crowley.’ 

Crowley debated the odds of conveying any approximation of the truth in words, and very nearly shuddered.

‘S’nothing,’ he muttered instead, reaching out to fiddle with the Blaupunkt. ‘Just an experiment, is all.’

‘An experiment?’ Aziraphale repeated suspiciously.

‘Though really, as the Lord’s Winged Protector or whatnot, shouldn’t you be a little bit better at caring about His creation anyway? And creation _includes_ hibiscus plants, however improbable may that sound.’ Crowley smacked his lips. ‘Honestly, it’s almost funny, Aziraphale. Have you never thought what’s the cause of this weird reluctance of yours to having a … a dependant?’

Something in the air turned frosty at once, and he wondered, a little dazed, what was the exact point at which he’d overstepped.

‘ _Oh_ ,’ Aziraphale said coldly, ‘so we’re back at this, then. Questioning. Don’t you ever grow tired this eternal scuffle, Crowley? What do you think you’re going to achieve here, tempt me into … into _what_ , some careless proclamation of doubt? Don’t you think that’s a little _insulting_ after all this time?’

‘I’m not—listen, I was only—’ Crowley trailed off, newly, acutely uncomfortable. The slithery shadow of unease crept its way back up his spine, and coiled around his throat. ‘Teasing, Aziraphale. I was _teasing_. There’s nothing deeper here.’

‘Is that right?’ said Aziraphale, sounding rigid. ‘Don’t _you_ ever think what’s brought all this about, Crowley, this incessant string of awful questions? Where has it _led_ you?’ 

And there it was again: almost in the open but not quite, lingering heavy in the air, waiting for Crowley to pick up and blurt out his struggling heart. A hollow, aching thought: _it’s led me_ here, _can’t you see that?_

So he kicked at the accelerator, tightened his new-cold fingers on the leathery steering wheel. The air slunk into the car with a hiss and for a brief and blissful moment, he was too physically stunned to feel the more abstract pressure. Beside him, Aziraphale emitted something in the way of a strangled groan.

‘ _No_ ,’ Crowley said, voice rustling, and wondered about how easy would it be to second-guess this, how easy if he allowed himself to beg for it, ‘I don’t.’

 

_to wonder, ‘do I dare?’ and ‘do I dare?’_

 

But that was all on the good days, because then he’d still manage to fuse with his car— _a whole body glove_ , he’d said, and it fit snugly alright—and lose the train of his terrible thought along with the speed. The world could whizz past, blurry and excitably incoherent, like it had gotten a little bit tipsy on red wine. And Crowley would still laugh; if a little nervously, well then, that could surely be overlooked? The idea of nerves was pretty damned _profane_ anyway. And then he’d regain the sense receptors in his fingertips, and then his grip on the steering wheel.

(But funny how easily he could slip out of remembering how to function bodily, in those doubting moments. Funny how he still called it _doubt_ , as though one could really _doubt_ one’s own previous _doubting_.)

 

_disturb the universe?_

 

‘Has something happened?’ Aziraphale’s cautious voice came drifting innocuously and he swallowed. He closed his eyes, let a measured breath glide through the fussy intricate mechanism of his human body. Then he said,

‘No.’ And the wind was just a little bit colder that day, just a little bit sneakier. And his voice just a little bit more hollow. ‘Why should it?’

‘Because we’ve seen each other yesterday _and_ the day bef—’

‘And I dared spoil your holy solitude once again?’ Crowley said dully. ‘ _Lovely_ , angel. Excuse me for not being a heaven-approved hermit, will you.’

There was a silence—only, not _quite_ , because the wind kept piercing the air with a barely audible howl, promising in dawdling shrill murmurs that the frost _was_ coming; and somewhere beneath all that he could hear Aziraphale sigh—and Crowley flicked a speckle of ash from his stone-cold cigarette down into the water. Some supremely stupid duck flapped closer, thinking it was bread. Crowley found it somewhat tragic how accurately he could relate. He tipped some more dust, and then the whole cigarette. He felt numb. 

‘That’s not what I meant,’ Aziraphale said meanwhile, deflating. He joined Crowley next to the railing, leaning against it and mirroring his position—arms crossed, shoulders tight, eyes fixed down. ‘What I meant was, that’s a little _uncharacteristic_ of you, is all.’

Crowley sniffed: the air was biting in his lungs. And oh, how he _hated_ winter, from the first moments it emerged from behind the falsely steady pretence of autumn. He said, ‘Is it?’

He could feel Aziraphale studying him, probably with this known expression of mildly incredulous curiosity, which tended to be his default look to give Crowley—a puzzling entity, something vaguely bothersome, something one would struggle with attributing a neat label to. Which, ironically enough, must have been a truly _demonic_ feature to have, for someone who fussed over the most meticulous book cataloguing system on Earth.

And it nearly made him smile. Smile, but also do something stupid and mindless, like …

Like perhaps lean forward and _hug_ Aziraphale. Such a human thing to do, and so ridiculously ineffectual. He could very nearly picture it: feel the angel tense uncomfortably and stare at him with those bewildered eyes, startled breath ghosting across his neck, and Crowley would have to laugh  and say something properly nasty before prodding them to go somewhere else, not giving a _damn_.

He could not quite see the other thing, the _better_ thing, which keened and tempted from somewhere hazy that he hardly ever allowed his thoughts to stray: he would not lean heavily and stay that way, wouldn’t let himself be embraced back, and mutter, ‘I’m cold.’

And Aziraphale wouldn’t say, ‘Let’s go home, then.’

Crowley pushed himself off the railing with a hiss. ‘Do you ever think of ... not doing this anymore?’

He half-expected Aziraphale to be a little offended, perhaps to huff like he’d done in the car, but the angel merely blinked. He seemed taken aback. ‘Doing what?’

Crowley swallowed. ‘Nothing.’

 

_for I have known them all already, known them all_

 

Yes, that was all on the good days, and then there came the colder ones. Human beings didn’t tend to be cold-blooded, but Crowley would hiss at the biting air, clouds of steam billowing in the air.

Or maybe it went different: maybe he’d just walk blinking and detached, be it in snow or in blinding sunlight, startled among the blunt and smugly affirmed humans, thinking faintly of how much easier it would have been to _be_ an Anthony, aged thirty-something, with a flat and a car, a set of mild habits and an old friend; foreseeing the looming end of his existence and knowing that in order not to die unsatisfied, _forcing the moment to its crisis_ needed to happen soon.

And then he’d feel the pushing wind push at him, numb and mindless, and so much stronger than his indefinite and seamless persisting. Sometimes, the blasphemy would lie in the thought that he would like to stop persisting; sometimes it would lie in the idea of changing the direction of it all.

 

_I know the voices dying with a dying fall_

 

‘Well, the problem _is_ , my dear,’ Aziraphale’s voice faded marginally, only to return with a suspicious crack and a deeply unsettling echo, ‘that it’s simply not … growing. It’s not doing much of anything, to be frank. Oh _de_ —’

There was another mysterious, and properly unidentifiable now, noise, and Crowley could swear he heard Aziraphale curse under his breath. He waited patiently, the telephone tucked snugly between his ear and jaw, stirring a coffee which didn’t much need stirring in a languid motion.

‘Take your time, angel,’ he said caustically, leaning in to sniff the coffee and wincing. Well, it was _black_ and it smelled _awful_ , but that was supposed to be the deal, wasn’t it?

‘What I meant to say,’ Aziraphale said, becoming oddly clear now, as though he’d miraculously discovered the way of properly holding a phone in the meantime of entertaining a minor apocalypse, ‘was that you seemed to be right, unfortunately.’

‘Yes,’ Crowley hissed, wretchedly, ‘that’s exactly what I would call unfortunate. Thank you, Aziraphale, I feel … validated.’

‘Oh, stop it, you old serpent,’ Aziraphale replied, not unkindly. ‘It’s truly baffling, but it seems like … well, the inevitable conclusion: I _can’t_ sustain a plant. It’s dying, Crowley, it’s becoming … worryingly yellow. It’s been four days and it’s already looking like it’s been infected with some—’

‘ _Fascinating_.’ Crowley yawned, hardly even trying to conceal it from the angel. ‘Look, can’t you just yell at it or something? Besides, m’pretty sure it’s nothing to worry about. If they pushed you down for that sort of thing, well, there’d hardly be any sides to talk about, would there?’ 

There was a distinctly offended silence on the other side of the line and Crowley prepared himself for the inevitable event of scolding him for the _awful questioning_ , or whatever that had been. And then Aziraphale said, ‘Crowley, have you been _sleeping_?’

Ah. So it wasn’t _that_ , then.

‘As a matter of fact, yes, I have,’ Crowley said, a notch defensively. ‘Didn’t know that was a crime, though. Still, all the better for me, right?’

He _had_ been sleeping, and rather devotedly at that, buried under the layers of stuffy air and white bed sheets and adamant on drowning out the raging white noise of consciousness inside his head. Just for a while.

But then the telephone rang, and then it didn’t _stop_ ringing when he glared at it, and if there was anything that Aziraphale could be, then it was _persistent_.

‘No, but it’s worrying,’ the angel was now saying, rather bossily. ‘And … well, curiously human, Crowley. To risk sounding _bland_ , escaping reality doesn’t really help with any—’

Crowley tensed. ‘What? Doesn’t help with _what_? And anyway, why would _you_ care about it? You’ve never—’

He trailed off, unsure of what he’d meant to say. There it was again: this brimming uncertainty writhing in between the words. If he said it, _right then_ , would it really be so difficult to deny it later? If it went the wrong, he’d at least _know_ —

He stifled the thought. Aziraphale was saying, ‘Oh, Crowley, don’t be like that. I’m the one who’s calling you, am I not? I’d think—’

Crowley smiled a bitter smile, not really concerned with whether Aziraphale would be able to sense it from some subtle twitch in the radio waves between them—which was doubtful, to say the least. He muttered, ‘Yes, well, that’s _baffling_ too. Usually I seem to be the one, you know, clinging to your reluctant attention. Fishing for scuffles.’

The silence that followed was a little bit more full of hurt than he’d intended it to be. Crowley closed his eyes and blessed, inaudibly and desperately, into his cup of nauseating coffee.

Stiffly, Aziraphale said, ‘Now, I really—do you _have_ to be like this?’

‘Like what?’ said Crowley, suddenly feeling sick. He thought back to the dull, overpowering numbness of his sleep-warmed austere bed, solitary and devoid of any character. _Easy_ , perhaps. Bloody well it was easy. But he _could_ use with some easy, for a change.

‘Oh, come on,’ he mumbled before Aziraphale could answer, ‘what kind of a question is that? And besides, isn’t that more _characteristic_ of me, at least? Make up your mind.’

‘I don’t—’

‘I’m going to bed,’ Crowley said, with a pointed finality. ‘See you around, I guess. Sometime.’

The telephone weighed absurdly much when he was putting it down. No reply was caught in the air.

 

_so how should I presume?_

 

Sometimes he would stand with his eyes closed and face raised into the idea of sun, waiting for something to strike him—whether the lightning of final damnation, some form of annunciation that _everyone else_ seemed to have a right to—he was never sure. Not that it mattered, because these broad and general thoughts, if crippling, were never really the reason for the coiling ache low in Crowley’s stomach, sickening and nervous and still unescapable.

No, his reason was selfish, and personal: like the moment he opened his eyes and realised that he hadn’t been leaning into the sun at all but rather facing unseeingly the paint-flaking entrance to a cluttered bookshop. And, flustered, he’d either walk off briskly or barrel in, caustic and jeering and biting at the mildly alarmed and ever-pleasant being that was cosying up inside.

Either way, he’d do it wrong.

 

_and how should I begin?_

_Sometime_ came earlier than he’d think, and earlier than he’d care for. But then again, so did waking up.

He strolled into Aziraphale—or, more precisely, Aziraphale strolled into _him_ , utterly focused on reading something so old and shabby that it resembled a grubby potato sack more than a book—mid-Covent Garden, upon listening to a highly bemused version of _Crazy Little Thing Called Love_ performed by a group of violinists clearly intending to go for something a little bit more conventional, like say, _Vivaldi_.

‘You’d think one of us is doing it on purpose,’ Crowley said, in a falsely light tone, at the same time as Aziraphale said, ‘I’m sorry.’

It was bizarre—so much Crowley would swear he felt his eyelids twitch. Aziraphale looked inexplicably contrite, having discarded his focus on the disaster of a book with truly awe-inspiring swiftness.

‘Sorry?’ Crowley said, somewhat stupidly.

‘I didn’t mean to,’ Aziraphale gestured vaguely at Crowley, perhaps to indicate the fact they’d collided, ‘you know. That tends to happen a lot lately, though, doesn’t it? Running into each other. Perhaps you were right, London _is_ shrinking.’

 _Pity_ , Crowley thought with a sinking feeling in his stomach, _no escape._

‘Dunno,’ he found himself saying, not entirely consciously; the larger portion of his mind seemed to fixate on the fact he was thinking _at all_ , or rather, that he was aware of the possibility of doing something that would make a difference, and still allowing it to wane impassively with each second. ‘It’s been a while since we’ve done this by accident.’

‘This?’ said Aziraphale, sounding vaguely bashful and misunderstanding still, and Crowley couldn’t quite understand why.

‘Well,’ he said, matter-of-factly, ‘lately it’s all been with certain _intent_ , wasn’t it?’

Something halted in him just then, in a numbing realisation of what his disconnected lips uttered to counter his high-wired and actively self-deluding brain. The entire world slowed down, meekly, to allow for Crowley’s breathless question of whether Aziraphale caught this damning subtlety, whether he really paid attention to—

‘I think there might have been some slight …’ the angel said after a pause, hesitantly. ‘Um. Failure of communication there. Yesterday.’

Crowley’s eyebrows furrowed and the tension melted in the air: _ah, no_. 

‘I was sort of … er, half-asleep?’ he offered, uncomfortably, and trying not to look at Aziraphale at all.

But then the angel uttered, stiffly, ‘What I really meant to tell you is that I can’t keep that plant. It’s … it’s not doing _well_ , Crowley, and I think … I think that simply isn’t a place for plants, the bookshop. Survival of the fittest, and so on—the environment may be a little bit too—er, extreme.’ 

For a moment, Crowley said nothing, instead watching Aziraphale with stone-cold stillness. Somewhere behind them, the violin struck a particularly jaunty note in _Bohemian Rhapsody_ , startling no one more than the musician himself.

And it was cold, very cold: he suddenly remembered _winter_ and remembered the connotations of the world _inevitable_. And it was all, once again, dizzying.

‘Toss it out, then,’ he said airily, letting his eyes fall closed behind the glasses.

Aziraphale dithered. ‘But I—’

‘Look,’ Crowley said, listlessly, ‘take it as my one attempt at second chances, yeah? Experiment, I’ve said. Failed? Alright. Let it join the choir invisible then, along with however many should you picture me having already disposed of. You can even give it a blessing before it goes. Whatever.’

He tapped the sunglasses with his finger—the air seemed to burn across the skin—and tilted them slightly to the side. 

‘We’ll run into each other sometime anyway,’ he said, watching Aziraphale’s expression become something odd and wary. ‘It seems a little inevitable.’

He walked off, thinking of how ridiculously far removed the execution could be from the intent.  

 

_shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets_

And amidst all this, he would try to forget that he was not meant to ask the noble, nimbly abstract _why?_ with reference to this entire ridiculous and precious universe; or if he did so, it would never be as honest and terrifying as his own aspect of the issue. This almost fleshly _fear_ or _hope_ , however he’d like to call it, this suffocating unrealised possibility.

The question of whether, if he dared cross the line, there would be someone waiting for him on the other side at all; or would it just be noiseless drowning.

 

_have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?_

 

There was a cold stinging night all around him, but he felt warm: a burning dizzy feeling spreading in the nerve endings, like he was slowly disintegrating into a much more welcoming existence: into waves or photons, trembly and thoughtless, easy.

Crowley let his head fall back, uncovered eyes peering hazily upwards into the muddled dark night. There was a wind, and he was sitting at the edge of a tall building’s roof. Something so morbid shouldn’t feel this steady; but he had lived through millennia of lonely thoughts like these, and if he was sure of one thing in the world, it was how to endure.

And, alright, it wasn’t exactly what he’d want it all to be: it wasn’t the question uttered and the answer received. It wasn’t the big brave gesture, or the dramatic reveal. _No_ , _I am not Prince Hamlet nor was I meant to be,_ was that right? He wasn’t sure.

And perhaps it did sting, a _little_ , even under all this hazy forced unthinking, that he could have done something but hadn’t, and wouldn’t, because the stake was just a smidge too high to bear it.

‘You’d think I wouldn’t find you on a roof of an abandoned warehouse in Camden,’ a thick, impossibly un-abstract voice cut in, drifting out of the darkness uninvited and unanticipated, ‘and yet here we are. Take your pick, my dear, one of us is becoming predictable.’

Crowley swayed a little, and blinked: apparently, he tended to do the most unlikely of things when thrown off balance. And was there even anything more improbable to conjure up than Aziraphale, in a shapeless coat, walking up to him in the dead of night with warm eyes?

He blinked again. Suddenly there was another stinging, in his throat and his eyes, and it just wouldn’t _do_.

‘Aziraphale,’ he acknowledged anyway, hoarsely. The angel crouched down next to him, then swung his legs carefully across the edge. When he looked up, Crowley didn’t move an inch.

There was something unbearable in those eyes, he thought dimly, knowing and inviting, and it would be better for all and sundry if he simply looked away and maybe _sobered up a bit_ , pretended it wasn’t all as desperate as it was. Pretended he was there for the wind and the night, and not to strangle his own inner outcry.

‘S’a shame,’ he said instead, in the same cracking and blurry voice, and inhaled sharply. He wavered again, almost imperceptibly, almost enjoying the way the world was still out of focus, but Aziraphale was _not_. ‘There’s no stars.’

Aziraphale’s eyes seemed to be searching for something in his face. He said, ‘It’s still _London_ , Crowley.’

‘Yeah.’ He almost smiled. ‘Yeah, I know.’

There was a moment of silence. And then Aziraphale was speaking again, ‘You don’t mind this, do you? Because there’s … nothing unintentional in that kind of running into you, let’s say, which was not exactly the deal.’ 

Crowley didn’t respond for a while. There was something weird happening inside him, a gradual uncoiling. He wasn’t quite sure how to progress.

‘Do I ever?’ he said faintly, blinking owlishly at the stars. Funny business, this blinking. Like a stuttering old film, only softer.

‘I don’t know,’ Aziraphale muttered, and he sounded odd. Slightly agitated, or maybe slightly nervous—but that wasn’t really a plausible way for him to sound, and for some reason, he was _looking at his hands_. Which, too, was fascinating in a twisted way, because Aziraphale could look anything in the eyes unflinching.

Some involuntary and faint layer of Crowley’s mind latched to yet another thought: _or maybe it's me._  How eerie he must look, in this dim blue night: a gaunt human face and inhuman yellow eyes. How alien.

And the thought, innocent was it was, made him suddenly grasp it: _it was cold_. A cold little void, stretching right in front of him up to the very tip of a trembling tartan scarf. And so bluntly unbridgeable. 

‘I wasn’t exactly my brightest as of late,’ Aziraphale said, to his splayed out hands. Crowley didn’t think much by that point, quite overwhelmed. He just thought, _well_ , Aziraphale’s hands were surely warm, and where was the justice in that?

‘The ineffable bit,’ was what he said aloud, only half-surprising himself. ‘S’always like that, isn’t it? You want to say one thing, end up saying ‘nother. Or hearing. I don’t know, Asssiraphale. Ssometimes I feel like it's all one big and unfunny joke.’

Aziraphale smiled, still looking down. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘sometimes.’ 

Crowley blinked some more, as though it could be a valid method of substituting heat production in someone who proved to be hopelessly cold-blooded after all. He said, ‘And you don’t really have to keep th’plant, or toss it away. I’ll do it. It was a sstupid idea, anyway. I mean, what sort of a—’

Aziraphale pulled at his coat’s lapels, and kissed him. 

And oh, _that_ was a funny sensation, _warm_ and a little bit less dry than he’d expect. But more than anything, it was _unexpected_ : it cut off the air from Crowley’s lungs and halted the heartbeat. If he’d been so desperately seeking for something to put an end to thoughts and noise, well, _that was_ _it:_ at the moment he could barely remember to exist.

But he still remembered to think: _so you listened_.

Aziraphale withdrew, taking away his tease of warmth, but not entirely so, because he didn’t quite _lean back_. Crowley stared with his eyes blown wide.

‘But I’ve been wondering,’ Aziraphale said, sounding impossibly unflustered by the sheer enormity of that impossible thing that he’d just done, ‘did you have anything in mind? Something different, for sure, but anything in particular? Like New Zealand or maybe some Italian province or—’ 

‘Actually,’ Crowley said, a little vaguely and feeling rather stunned at his own lips’ ability to formulate words upon such a vast alteration in their intended use manifesting itself through Aziraphale, and the way he suddenly stopped _slurring_ , ‘I was thinking the South Downs.’

‘Ah. _Excellent_ ,’ was the soft reply.

 

_and in short, I was afraid_

And the answer, perhaps inconsequentially so, seemed to be that buying a cottage was indeed quite easy when one could simply assume it would be waiting for him.

**Author's Note:**

> And, as a side note ... man, do I enjoy writing the existentially-struggling Crowley.


End file.
